


Silent Suicide

by Adoubletap



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, East of the Sun West of the Moon meets The Shining, Gets darker the further along we go, How Do I Tag, Jack’s Gross, M/M, Mostly Handsome Jack/Rhys, Mostly Rhack with hints of Rhysothy, Princes in the Tower, Reincarnation AU, Tom Skelton - Freeform, Vaguely based in 1970’s, Vaguely based off a “True Story” lol, except not, ghost au, rhack - Freeform, rhackothy, rhysothy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:53:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23646472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adoubletap/pseuds/Adoubletap
Summary: “Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.”
Relationships: Handsome Jack/Rhys (Borderlands), Rhack - Relationship, Rhysothy - Relationship, Timothy Lawrence/Rhys
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Silent Suicide

Rhys gave a weary stare, cold hands gone stiff gripping the steering wheel, the hood of his car rattling as the engine gave a last belch of smoke, at the daunting castle a short walk away from him. He sat back to linger in his slump, running both of his hands through his hair in exasperation. His working eye drifted to the details of his car’s ceiling as he reflected what all had happened that had led to where he was. He spotted a small dent noticeable through the drooping fabric from that time Vaughn and Rhys had celebrated their first high school party. Vaughn, a short stocky boy who doubled as the leading mathlete of their high school and a too dweeby weight lifting jock, roared while pumping his fists to Jefferson Starship on cassette as Rhys tried to stifle the excitement, eyes out for the familiar red and blue flashes of light. Vaughn had struck the ceiling, and yelped in pain, drawing back his hand, Rhys laughing in turn as his eyes stung from the wind rushing through the rolled down windows as he sped down the road. 

Rhys shook his head, getting it back together. He rubbed at his glass eye, muttering about it’s annoying tendency to dry out. He shot one last look at the smoke that billowed in thinner plumes than when he had pulled over. The car had seen the last of its glory days the second Rhys and Vaughn had a falling out shortly after graduation. Like it took preference over his ex-best friend over the guy who spent a few summer’s budget to buy it. 

Rhys’s mom had said it was a beater from the start, and Rhys had been too proud to have bought his first car to see that. He made a note to never let his mom know she was right. 

Plucking the keys from the ignition, Rhys pocketed them with some begrudging hesitation as he unlatched the car door and made the first difficult step of doing what he had come to this place to do. He gave another long look at the castle. 

Jeez. This guy had to be eccentric. Rhys had been told the man had been one for outlandish purchases, one of the richest men in the world so he had the means to do so, but to take an ancient looking castle from across the damn ocean and rebuilt it brick by brick on foreign soil, and to not take care of it? The grass around the area had grown so long, it had withered and hung limply in thick bushes that stuck out from the ground, some twisting over rusted metal and old wood stakes. Add to that the old playground with only the jungle gym still up, but the slide collapsed in on the swings somehow, and the eerie way an old metal gate creaked as it swung, the whole place screamed “This Is Haunted, All Numbnuts Beware!”

Rhys pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. Guess that meant him. He took a deep breath to get his stress out, which didn’t work but hey, when does it? 

One foot in front of the other. Rhys did just that, his chest feeling slammed by the added weight of nervousness with each step. He kept so focused on just that, that he’d nearly tripped over the steps leading up to the wide intimidating red door. Vaughn would have made some joke, like, pointing with one finger and quoting, “REDRUM. REDRUM! Am I right?” And laugh. So would Rhys. 

Man, he was so stupid. Rhys was so stupid. This was so stupid. 

He readied his fist to give the door a deafening bang. One, two, three beats too long. Rhys shut his eyes as he pushed past his doubts, and landed three solid pounds to the heavy door. It echoed in deep booms that shook Rhys like a struck metal tuner. He clutched at his head to still the ringing, shaking it to fix his crossed eyes. When he pulled himself together, the door hadn’t opened. Everything was as still and eerie as before Rhys had knocked. 

‘Well, can’t say I didn’t try, right,’ Rhys thought to himself. This place was as abandoned as it looked, definitely not the last known location of a mystery rich eccentric. As he turned a heel, the door lurched open like the gates to hell. What struck Rhys first was the smell. Jesus Christ, Rhys clapped a hand to his nose to keep himself from dry heaving. It was old food in crusted bowls, anchovies on pizza left to stew in the hot dust of an old building over the summer, boiled milk and broccoli left to grow a colony of bacteria, and that overwhelmed him like a powerful wave that he hardly dared to breathe. Rhys kept his mouth shut just to be sure he wouldn’t be made to taste what he’d smelled later. 

Out of the dark of the castle, squinting at the sun blotted by thick clouds, stood some kind of hermit. He smelled as bad as whatever he’d left to rot back inside. Only with more body odor, some spritz of cheap cologne and aftershave. The uneven shade of his eyes seemed to match Rhys’s own. No one had said he had heterochromia. Out of everything, beside the smell, that stuck out most.

Sniffing in reproach, the … hermit before Rhys stood up straighter, making a noticeable effort to suck in his gut. “Damn, I thought you guys got the picture six months ago,” he said, voice like gravel. Rhys withheld a shiver, stuck between looking at the man, or the heavy darkness of the inside of his home. Both felt smothering. He wasn’t sure which he was afraid of more. 

“Uh, hi,” Rhys squeaked, clearing his voice, holding a hand out as he tried again, “Ahm. My name is Rhys. I’m a student at—“

“Hold up, hold up,” The man said, wiping the back of a dirty hand across the whiskers of his upper lip. He gave another once over at Rhys, and his posture immediately changed. He crossed his arms, leaning up against the door frame, and gave a mighty smirk that reminded Rhys that this guy had once been a notorious flirt. Looks like that hadn’t changed. But to direct that kind of attention at Rhys was not something he’d expected.

“Look at you. Tall, slim and, uh. Handsome?” The hermit said, at first unsure as he struggled to find the two brain cells it took to come up with a compliment (sort of?), then busted out into a laugh. “Ha, imagine? Me? Calling another guy handsome? Swear, those guys back at the office finally figured out the type I’m into, and sent you to throw me off the saddle. Real classic. Took me off guard,” he laughed.

Rhys did a double take. They what? 

“Sir, uh, I don’t—“ He started to say, and then the man cut him off. 

“—Jack, sweetheart. Or, Handsome Jack, like they used to call me. Hell, they still’d better,” said … Jack. 

Rhys gripped his fist, tucking it into his pocket more to distract himself from Jack’s irritating habit of talking over him than from any other need to. “Mr. Jack,” Rhys said then quickly stuck up a finger to interrupt Jack before he could talk over him again, “My name is Rhys. I’m a university student. Your brother’s my professor. Mr. Lawrence said you lived here, but hadn’t seen you in a few …, uh, a while. I’m here to give you a rain check. Everything’s ok?”

The unsettling smugness that Jack had shifted to the second he got a look at Rhys, a real look at him, as was emphasized by his wandering gaze, soured when Rhys had mentioned Jack’s brother. “What? Now he cares,” Jack sneered, throwing a glare somewhere behind Rhys. Caught off guard from the sudden change in Jack’s mood, probably out of nerves, Rhys looked behind him and saw nothing. 

“Eyes on me, cupcake,” Jack snapped. Rhys did so, and found himself once again drawn to the colors of Jack’s eyes. A light blue and a deep shade of green. Like being watched by someone who wasn’t like anyone else. “Oh, shit. Your eyes,” Jack said, and Rhys was startled as Jack reached out to him. “What?” Rhys clapped a hand over his eye instinctively. It started to sting the second Jack mentioned it.

“One of them’s blue,” Jack observed, not so politely staring almost as intensely as Rhys had stared as his, “What? Why you hiding it? It’s whacky. Is that one of mine?” Rhys took a step back, and nearly tripped down a step in his haste to get away. 

“It’s … look, there’s not a brand attached to whoever makes glass eyes!” He said defensively. Jack wouldn’t, or couldn’t, get the hint as he stepped way too close to Rhys to tear his hand away from his eye by the wrist. Rhys could feel his throat clench as he stopped himself from gagging, Jack’s smell over encompassing everything at this range. Jack stood a little taller than him as Rhys readied to crouch away from his hand. 

“My ass, ‘there’s no brand for that!’ What? Who took that design? I made that. Here, take it out. You can do that right? Just pop out the eye, like a Pez dispenser,” Jack said. He was getting too close, Rhys could spot how dirty Jack’s loose yellow shirt was. Could smell the months, maybe a year or so it had been since Jack had bothered to wash it. And Jack himself looked ragged. Deep wrinkles that worried his brow, the dark circles below his eyes that hung heavy, a chiseled jaw that was prominent even with the mass of a five’ o’clock shadow, and a sluggish swoop of dark hair that hung with a streak of silver over Jack’s mismatched eyes. What had been a handsome man, was now a washed up and dirtied shell of that man.

“Get the hell off of me,” Rhys made to slap his hand out of Jack’s grip, and stumbled back. Jack seemed amused, the jerk, as he swiped his hand closer to Rhys’s face. “What? You think I’m gonna rip out your throat or something? Ha! Nah, buddy. I just want to see that eye,” Jack almost laughed while he lashed out at Rhys who kept taking steps back, less carefully each time. 

Rhys fumbled, trying to be more stern as he backed away, “Hey, hey, come on! Stop it! You’re just wasting your time!” 

Jack wasn’t getting the picture, his laugh much more mirthful as if he got a kick out of creeping Rhys out, “Oooh, I’ll be the judge of that.” Rhys didn’t like the way that that had sounded at all. He made a plan in his head. Not part of what he’d originally come up with that landed him in this situation, but it should keep him safe from this bozo. Do a double take, jerk in one direction, then the next, and then back it up, turn and run and get back to the car. Worst comes to worst, Jack throws himself full bodied at the car door, reveals a hook for a hand, and smashes the car window. 

… Ok, so the hook was unlikely. So was the chance that even if Rhys did get to the car, it could take him away from here. But at the moment, some kind of barrier between Jack, his smelly old castle, and Rhys, was a better option than without. One foot in front of the other, like before. Or, behind. Yes, one foot behind the other was all that it—

“Ha, you’re so stupid! Watch your head dick for—“ Jack didn’t finish the sentence before Rhys found himself falling, parallel the stairs, to the ground. Rhys landed with a grunt, the wind knocked out of him as he flailed like a turtle on its back. 

Time seemed meaningless as Rhys thrashed around, hands grasping at the sounds of dry grass for purchase, to get the world to stop spinning and to get away from the unfamiliar place. One eye felt cold, and Rhys feared that he’d lost his glass eye as he fumbled around for it and the means to stand up. Next thing he knew, the ground was up and his momentum was in a whirl. Jack held him up by one shoulder, saying something that Rhys couldn’t make out in his panicked state. 

Why did he do this? What did he hope to achieve by lying to Jack? What, like he’d seriously take in some random undergrad just because he knew his brother? And Tim. Professor Lawrence. He’d didn’t even know that Rhys had done this.

Once it seemed like everything was back as it was before again, somehow feeling like too long and too short of time all at once, Rhys was struggling to get away from Jack. “Get off me,” he said, adding to it enough force to push him out of Jack’s not so careful support. Rhys crawled back as he put his hand over his eye again, relieved once he felt that it was still there, and pushed it back into place. Jack, for his part, looked scandalized, holding up both his arms in defense as he pinched his lips together. “Easy, princess,” Jack assured Rhys, “Don’t get your panties in a twist. Was only checking to see if your eye’d fallen out so I could look over the company logo. If it were one of mine, I’d see Hyperion in bold letters.”

“It’s not,” Rhys seethed, “One of yours! It’s just a glass eye I’ve had for years! There wasn’t anything on it when I got it! So, there! Happy now?”

There was a tense pause, an awkward collision of Rhys, the idiot student who came to Jack, and Jack, the ex CEO of Hyperion, who was quietly chuckling to himself as he stood up, brushing off his pant legs as he walked over to Rhys. “Alright, alright. I heard it the first time. Just wanted to check for sure,” Jack said, standing over Rhys, his figure striking a more powerful shadow than his first appearance at the door had implied. He lifted Rhys up, not so helpfully getting a handful of Rhys’s ass to cup as he raised him. Rhys elbowed Jack away, his glare sharp as daggers added to by the blue of his glass eye. 

“So. Old Timmy sent you to check up on me?” Jack said, almost to himself as if it were funny, “What’s the good twin up to these days? Find a good guy like you to send as a late birthday present? He knows I dig uniforms. Guess ‘the intern’ is as good a uniform as any. College student? Eh, least they’ll do anything for a buck, so that’s one smart thing he’s done to pinch pennies.”

Rhys was the one to appear scandalized then, frowning as his cheeks reddened. “I’m, I’m not a stripper! And I’m not an intern either,” he informed him, “Listen. I’m just here to see if you’re ok and if you need any help? Tim said you had family here too. Are they even home?” At that, Jack in turn, frowned as well. 

“Oh, what? Seriously? Thinks I need a nanny? Like I can’t take care of things on my own like I’ve been doing for the both of us all our lives? Go to hell,” Jack growled. 

Rhys felt the hairs on his neck stand up. He noted, in the back of his mind, that it wasn’t Jack per say, that had made him suddenly wary. Something he couldn’t see, but feel, raised his hackles. Something wasn’t right.

Next thing Rhys knew, Jack was chest to chest with him. This close, Rhys could tell Jack was definitely a little shorter than he was, but where he lacked in those inches of height, Jack made up for in power. “Sends his most favoritest student to check up on the sad sack Handsome friggin’ Jack,” Jack says, punctuating it with a stab of an accusing finger to Rhys’s chest, “Like he doesn’t know how to live by himself. Newsflash, kiddo, I’ve run a load more things than could break some sad little barely legal snot like you.” He emphasized it with a push, and Rhys found himself on the ground again, scrambling away from Jack. 

“I’m a big name, baby. I’m the big deal. ‘Course Tim could never see that. Says nothing for years, and then he decides now might be a good time to send his hot new lay. Rub it in the face of ol’ Jackie that he’s got a life that doesn’t include the business. Like he thinks he’s a big shot. Assclown’s looking for a reason to help himself feel superior with his high brow job and tactless ass. Extend that to me? That’s what he thinks, right?”

Rhys didn’t know how, but he found the motion to speak up in his defense to Jack’s tirade, “I’m not …! We aren’t sleeping together! I’m just his student. He doesn’t think of me like that!” Rhys clamped his jaw shut before he could say anymore.

Jack’s anger seemed to abate, deflating from his chest as his shoulders slumped, his belly once again protruding from under his shirt. As if caught off guard. Rhys felt his heart stutter against his rib cage, waited three beats, and then he was out. Scrambling like a madman, Rhys rushed for the car, ripping open the door and getting in before slamming it shut. He secured the lock, barely had the mind to check the others before he fumbled to get the keys out, and stuck one in the, strangely, also on the third try, ignition. 

One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. Rhys could count his rapid pulse as he tried to start the engine. It gave a meager gurgle, then piddled out. Rhys tried again, and again. Third time, it wouldn’t start. 

“Hey.”

It was muffled, but Rhys recognized Jack’s voice. He kept trying at the car. He became alert of how cold his sweat had become when Jack knocked on the window. “Listen. Uh, Ryan?” Jack attempted to recall Rhys’s name, but couldn’t. Rhys didn’t stop, his glass eye itching and tearing up because of it.

“Rhys.”

The familiarity of his voice. It was so much like Tim’s. All at once, everything hit Rhys. He leaned over the wheel, and fought back a sob.

“Rhys? Hey, Rhys?”

“Shut up,” he breathed, quietly, no way Jack had heard it.

“Rhys, open the door.”

“Shut up!” Rhys snapped, now looking Jack dead in the eye. 

They exchanged looks, Jack’s a sort of apologetic, or at least, what Rhys recognized from Tim’s constant expression when the girls crowded him after class, and Rhys’s a withering glare. Jack stood up, hands at both of his sides as he sighed. “Okay, kiddo. Whatever. Tell Tim, er, Professor Lawrence,” he said this with some slight mocking exaggeration, “I’m. Alright. Everything’s alright. Thing’s around here have never been better since the, er. Accident. Been getting check-ups from more official types back at Hyperion every once in a while. S’somethin’. I dunno.”

He turned away to get back inside, the high energy that had buzzed like a hive of flies when Jack had flared up at Rhys, receding into a barely there hum. Rhys couldn’t make sense of the feeling. All he knew was gut instinct. An instinct he had ignored when he’d driven almost overnight to get to Jack’s home. Throw himself at the man, playing at a potential temporary housemate, and stay there for however long it took for Rhys to recover from what he’d run away from.

What his gut had told him was a stupid idea from the start, and that he’d charged in with little regard to what it would do to him in the long run despite that. 

Steeling himself, since he had come this far, why turn back around, especially since he had no means of getting back home anyway, Rhys got out. “Hey, wait.” He said softly, and Jack did stop, looking over his shoulder. “Ok, look, I’m sorry. I mean, you should be sorry,” Rhys grimaced at his words, unsure of what to say to express what he’d meant to ask all along, “I mean. Uhm, Tim sent me here, sort of, to check up on you. But I was meaning to, I don’t know. Stick around? If you’d let me, I guess?”

Jack didn’t pull anything like he had before to display some alpha-male approach, or to make a pass at Rhys, but when he smiled, Rhys could feel his weakened heart do a flip. It was warm, and unique. One Rhys thought only Tim had, that was saved only for him. That Jack could also have that look was tempting.

‘Please,’ Rhys thought at Jack, hoping it would be clear through his demeanor, ‘Don’t make me go back.’

With a resigned sigh, that smile still on his lips, more self satisfied, entirely Jack’s than was Tim’s, and still enticing to Rhys, Jack gently shook his head. Rhys faltered at that, ready to turn away, when Jack was at his car’s side again. “Kinda desperate, aren’t ya,” Jack said, Rhys drawing back to look up at his sweaty, smelly savior, “If you want to, sure. I got some time to babysit, I guess.” Rhys pouted, unaware he’d done so until Jack laughed again. “Just take it easy. So my brother isn’t screwing you. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some interest if he sent you in particular to make sure everything’s peachy-keen.”

Rhys swallowed, his lie taken as truth. Hopefully. 

“That’s, uh. Well, he’s really not. Tim’s getting married. To a lady running the bar a little off campus. Uhm, Moxxi?”

Jack tilted his head back to cackle, “Hoooly shit! My ex girlfriend? Balloon tits? Really? Holy hell, what a curveball!”

At that, of all of this, Rhys wasn’t sure whether to laugh, cry, or to gawk.

**Author's Note:**

> Eager to post more for this au. Ghosts are rad, so’s Rhys/Handsome Jack. Please leave kudos/comments if you liked this and would like to see more!


End file.
